Penang is surely the holy grail when it comes to our favourite hawker foods. The best assam laksa, the best char kway teow, the best oh zhien (fried oyster omelette), the best prawn mee, and the litany goes on. But us poor souls elsewhere have to scrounge and scrape (or at the very least, go on numerous foodie trips around town) to get at something close to the standards that Penang generously offers in its bountiful hawker stalls.

I was very pleased when I finally came across Restoran Shangri-la, a coffee shop located in Plaza Batai that I would never have deigned to visit if not for friends.

Best Char Kway Teow in KL! It has the elusive wok hei, without the use of dark soy sauce that many char kway teow places abuse, and enough oil and spice to make it sinfully delicious. It makes use of blood cockles as well, as the Penang version does. Top it off with a perfectly deep fried egg and there you have it, a winning plate of delectable, aromatic, mouth-watering goodness.

The pork noodles is famous as well. I usually go for the kway teow soup noodles, topped with an egg. Noodle soup it may be but healthy it is not! How could it be when it tastes so rich and smooth, with a couple of ubiquitous lardons floating on the surface. The pork meat is soft and the thin kway teow has a silk-like mouthfeel.

After two long years my books are finally done and dusted. I’ve compiled two books, the first Myhumblefood book concentrates on Asian home cooking. The second book is a little more fun; along with some Western home cooking, I’ve also added a section on Food Art which is something I really enjoy. They’re both priced at RM 300 a set for people residing in Malaysia, or SGD 120 a set for those in Singapore.

Free delivery for those in Bangsar and Damansara Heights only.

Please PM me for details!

Special note: 50% of gross profit from the sale of the books will be donated to the National Kidney Foundation as well as the Great Heart Charity Foundation. Should you decide to also donate in addition to buying the book(s), 100% of your donation will go directly to these causes.

I’ve previously mentioned in an earlier post on how to make clear chicken soup. This recipe is similar except that there’s a lot more garlic and scallions in it. It’s a healthy dish and an easy one to make too. All you need is a little time to draw out the chicken essence into the soup.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (3 – 4 pounds) – some say that cornish hen works best but as I couldn’t find one, I used an antibiotic free adult chicken

10 – 12 garlic cloves

1 small piece ginger, sliced

1 medium onion, cut into halves

3 scallion stalks – white parts

1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns (optional)

Codonopsis roots (very much optional!!! I only added this because I had it in hand but the traditional Korean chicken soup does not include any herbs – this excludes the famous Korean Ginseng Chicken soup which has young ginseng and red dates in it)

The chicken has to be at room temperature before working with it. If you’ve kept it in the fridge, allow it to sit, covered of course, for half an hour at room temperature.

Cut off the wing tips and the tail end. If the chicken came with its head and feet intact, cut those off too. I’m unfortunately squeamish in this area.

Remove any excess skin, otherwise the soup will end up overly loaded with oil

Remove giblets from the chicken cavity.

Wash the chicken under running water and pat dry.

On high fire, prepare a pot of boiling water (pot has to be large enough to fit all the ingredients with room to spare so that the water doesn’t come splashing out as it boils)

Lower the chicken (and extra bones if you have any) into the boiling water and boil for 3-5 minutes before draining the water from the pot. This step helps to ensure further removal of impurities (blood, gunk, etc)

Add the garlic, onion, white parts of the scallions, ginger and peppercorns (and only if you have it, the roots and the dates) to the pot. Lastly add the water. The water level should be at least 2-3 inches above the chicken as it will reduce during the cooking process.

Bring everything to a boil over high heat and then reduce the heat to medium-low to simmer, covered for about 40 -50 minutes. During the cooking, skim off any foam that starts floating about on top. Otherwise you’ll have yourself some really murky looking soup!

Remove the chicken from the broth and place into serving bowl. If you’ve used extra bones, continue simmering for another 30 minutes. If I were just making regular chicken soup, I’d be simmering the lot for 1.5-2 hours. Doing that would compromise the chicken meat but it makes for extremely flavourful soup. As this recipe goes, the chicken should not be overcooked, yet we need the soup to be flavourful. This is where the extra bones come in handy – you can boil those without caring if they become tasteless in the end!

Add salt to the soup to taste.

To serve, you can serve the chicken and the soup in a large decorative soup bowl, garnished with the green scallions.

OR you can ladle some rice into a bowl, top with bite sized chicken bits and pour the soup in, topping everything off with the scallions.

I chose to eat mine with plain rice porridge and some kimchi. Seaweed would have been amazing too!

Here is the second half of the lobster (first half of which went to making the lobster pasta) and the easier recipe of the two. The original version called for fresh river prawns/big head prawns but since I had the lobster, I figured I could use that instead and add in some large prawns as a bonus. Since there is no recipe that I could refer to online I tried to recreate the taste the best I could remember. Turns out I’m actually quite satisfied with the results! Now without further ado, the recipe:-

Ingredients (4 pax)

1/2 lobster

6 large prawns (in my first attempt I used 3, but the attempt with 6 prawns tasted better)

1 inch ginger, sliced

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp minced onion

1/2 cup Shaoxing wine (maybe a dash more if you like)

5 cups chicken stock

Chinese lettuce (I used a quarter of a head), cut into bite sized pieces

1 tsp sesame oil

150g Glass noodles

Spring onions chopped into large three inch sections.

Coriander for garnish

Finely chopped spring onions for garnish

salt

The array of ingredientsGlass noodlesLarge lobster.

So we shall start with the prawns. De-shell all the prawns and set the shells/heads aside. Do NOT throw them away! Then devein them and cut each prawn into three sections.Size of the prawn heads and my hand, just for comparison. Lots of flavour in those prawn heads!

Cut the lobster into half. If the lobster is as spiny as this one, do use a towel and be very careful when handling it. A pair of strong kitchen scissors would be a great help here.

More pictures of the lobster… as you can probably tell, I’ve added pictures from a second lobster noodle attempt into the mix. The second lobster looked way fresher and more succulent with its firmer white flesh and golden globules.

When you’ve managed to cut the lobster into half lengthwise, chop the tail into three parts and dig out some of the flesh from the head (I forgot to do that here) and set that aside with the prawns. Leave the orange/golden stuff behind.

Heat up some oil in a large pot and fry the ginger, garlic and onions until the onions are translucent and the aroma of the ginger comes out. It helps to crush the ginger before or during this step.Add the prawn shells and fry until half cooked (almost that coral colour they become when they’re fully cooked) before adding the lobster head to the pot.Continue frying for a minute or so, adding a little oil if it gets too dry. Then add the shaoxing wine to soak up all that flavour that’s coming from the prawn shells and lobster head. I actually would have liked to add another half cup of shaoxing wine but I was worried my family may not like the taste so I stuck with half a cup, but go ahead and use that extra half a cup if you like.

Add the stock and simmer for around 15 minutes before turning off the heat. Cover the pot with its respective lid and leave it for perhaps an hour.

Then, remove the prawn shells from the stock (if you had a strainer bag in the first place, use it to hold the prawn shells because it can be a chore to pick them out from the soup).

Toss in the lobster and prawn meat that was set aside earlier, along with the spring onion sections, lettuce and glass noodles. The reason why we cook the shells and the meat separately is so that we can extract the most flavour out of the seafood from the shells without overcooking the meat, which is only added at the end. If you were to cook the meat right at the start, you’re going to end up with some very hard, overcooked and dry chunks of prawn/lobster which is such a waste of good seafood.

Place the lid back on and bring the soup to a boil.

Add the sesame oil at the end and season with salt. Top with chopped spring onions and coriander. Easy peasy!

So I’ve always loved tom yum goong, but never tried making it myself. So when I saw a tom yum recipe on the high heel gourmet’s blog (http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/) , I was really motivated to make it myself! Hers looks delicious and authentic.

I then made tom yum goong on two occasions following her recipe and found that its not only tasty but really healthy as well! Just look at the ingredients:-

Attempt 1: (No coconut milk used, smaller glass prawns and forgot to include the milk and prawns into the picture)Attempt no. 2: (With tiger prawns and coconut milk and a couple of shallots)

4 full stalks of lemongrass (I used 5… or more depending on whether I wanted to finish em all)

5-6 Kaffir lime leaves

Galangal, peeled and sliced thinly, 4-5 pieces (for a 1.5 inch diameter knob of galangal), or 7-8 for a smaller knob – I think its a good idea to smash it a little, to release the flavour and smell

Shrimp or prawns with head and shell – I might have used 300g cuz there’s no such thing as too many prawns *Greedy*

1 can of Straw Mushrooms, these variety of mushrooms are the best kind for tom yum in my opinion

3-4 limes

Fish sauce 2 tablespoons

6 cups of liquid in total ; Water/soup stock/coconut milk with 1 cup in reserve. I used 1 young coconut which gave me 2 cups of coconut milk which I find essential as an ingredient in tom yum soup. Without coconut milk I feel like there’s something missing and it doesnt turn out as aromatic

Salt, as needed (Prob 2-3 tsps according to your taste)

Spring onions, cut about 1/4” long, 2 tablespoons

The green parts of the spring onion, 5-6 “leaves” for tying the bouquet garni if you don’t have a string designated for cooking

Cilantro, cut about 1/2” long, (saving the top leaves for garnish) 2 tablespoons

Milk 1/2 cup (I used 3-4 tbsps when I thought the chilli was going to kill me from the level of spiciness…it helped to neutralize it a little)

Tomatoes 2-4 medium size, quartered (I used about 2)

Young coconut flesh (Unfortunately I ate mine so it never made it in to the soup)

Rock sugar 2-4 crystals (Just to eliminate the slightly unpalatable taste from the herbs, not enough to make the taste sweeter)

Cooking Instruction

1) For big prawns like the ones I’m using here, peel them, leaving the heads intact. De-vein the prawns and keep all the shells.

If you are using shrimp (smaller-sized prawns), pull the heads off alongside the shells and save them, also then deveining them. Set them aside.

2) Boil the 6 cups of liquid before adding the shrimp/prawn shells and shallots, and over the course of cooking, add water or stock as needed.

3) Meanwhile, boil another pot of water. This is where you’ll blanch your spring onion leaves so that it becomes malleable and you will be able to tie the bouquet garni with it. Blanch until soft then remove immediately.

4. Crush the lemongrass along the stalks and slice them lengthwise. Peel the galangal and slice it thinly. Tear the kaffir lime leaves towards the main stem, leaving the stem intact to keep them attached. Lay the blanched spring onions as below and place half the lemongrass on top, followed by kaffir leaves, galangal, more kaffir leaves and the rest of the lemongrass. Tie all of them into a bouquet garni so it doesn’t float all over in your soup.

When you’re done, cut the bundle down the middle (please make sure that both sides are equally secured by the spring onions) so it fits into your pot.

5) Place the bouquet garni into the pot and bring to a boil again, then lower the heat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.

5) Season the soup. The high heel gourmet (a.k.a. Miranti) says that first we must get the salty aspect right. First, add the fish sauce, followed by some salt. When you’re happy with the saltiness, drop the rock sugar into the pot (Always handy to have some crushed ones ready at hand, its easier to apportion and cook). The rock sugar is meant to offset the bitter taste of the herbs. Then you taste the soup again to ascertain if more salt is needed.

6) Take out the shrimp shells and leave the bouquet garni.

7) Increase the heat to high again. Add the mushrooms, tomatoes, young coconut flesh if you have it, and the prawns/shrimp.

If you want your Tom Yum to be quite hot and spicy, you can add chilies right now, but if you want it somewhat spicy but not over the top, you add them later once its done boiling.

8) Let it come back to a boil, then turn off the heat right away. At this stage you can add the Nam Phrik Pao, crushed chilies, lime juice, and milk if you like.

9) Garnish with green onion, a slice of lime and cilantro.

It was yummy and really simple to make!

Much thanks to the high heel gourmet for her meticulous recipe and cooking instructions (though I’m afraid I might have deviated here and there and not done her much justice):

I was cracking my head on what else I should do with the remainder of my truffles. I had way too much for myself! Then my sister described a dish that she really enjoyed at Zafferano. I’ve never been to Zafferano myself, but what she described sounded just perfect as it was not heavy and full of cream and fat (well, excluding the foie gras that is). I had been pigging out on heavy, calorie-laden food while making all these truffle dishes. Clear broth sounded amazing then.

Ingredients (per person)

1) Half a foie gras slice, cut into chunks (well you can add more if you like, but remember this is going to be boiled and not seared, thus it would make the soup really oily if you add too much)

2) chicken broth to fill up to slightly more than half of the soup bowl that you will be using

3) 1/4 of a courgette,sliced and quartered

4) 1/4 of a large carrot, sliced

5) 1/4 a large onion, sliced or 3 inches of a white radish, sliced and quartered

6) Truffle shavings

7) 1/4 of a 500g Jus-Rol Frozen Puff Pastry sheet, rolled out in a square shape and trim the ends with a sharp knife. It should be large enough to cover the soup bowl

Instructions

1) Add the vegetables and foie gras to the broth and simmer for about 5 minutes or until vegetables are sufficiently cooked to your liking.

2) Meanwhile preheat your oven temp. to 220ºC or the temperature that is stated on the cooking instructions for your ready made pastry.

3) Ladle out your soup into the bowl, I think it would be best if the soup was warm and not boiling hot because if it is the latter, the steam from the soup will cause the pastry puff sheet to sink down a lot more while baking. Mine totally sunk =(. Lastly add some sliced truffle into the soup. You could add the ends of the truffle, which is difficult to shave but too much of a waste to let go.

4) Place the pastry sheet over the soup bowl and make sure it is securely in place. Using a fork to make patterns (see picture below) helps to secure it in place. You can also go crazy with the patterns. 😉

5) Bake for 15-20 minutes until the puff pastry is all nicely puffed up and golden brown.

6) Told you my dough sank into the soup =(. With the middle bit sunken like that I had to save it somehow, so I draped a couple of sprigs of thyme and shaved the truffles on top

7) It was really good! The pastry and soup together is so comforting ~ Would totally make this again.

I love mushroom soup. Even though I’ve been eating canned Campbell mushroom soup for most of my life, nothing beats freshly made cream of mushroom soup. I attempted it for the first time as part of my truffle menu and used portobello and those nice swiss brown mushrooms. Other recipes call for er… wilder varieties of mushroom but since its just me and my helper, I decided to just use mushrooms that I’m used to. The end result should be a creamy thick soup of mushrooms and enhanced just by some chopped parsley, truffle shavings and perhaps a drop or two of truffle oil.

A spicy sour soup, kimchi jiggae goes well with rice or can be eaten on its own

This is where my love for korean dramas and food ties in well. Every time I watch one of my many korean dramas, there’s always a scene where someone’s eating and having a good time with all that delicious looking korean food. Kimchi fried pancakes, kimchi soup, bulgogi, Korean barbeque and the list is endless. After watching so much of it, I crave the food featured in the shows even if I’ve never tried it.

One of my favourite Korean dishes is Kimchi jiggae, a sort of soup or stew made with kimchi. Kimchi is essentially a fermented vegetable, most commonly made from napfa cabbage, and is loaded with vitamins as well as a healthy bacteria called lactobacilli which helps your digestion system. It has long been known to be a “health food” thus said.

Unfortunately I like the taste of it much more than I like the health benefits so I eat lots of this fermented cabbage. I throw it into kimchi stews and add meat to it and it comes out deliciously spicy and sour with plenty of umami.